Has it really been 6 years? My goodness, the time seems to have gone by so very quickly. What a truly wonderful journey I have had. I am honored and feel privileged to have been Editor of the Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology from 2012 through 2017. I want to thank all of those who made this journal possible, beginning with my associate, continuing education, book review, and consulting editors (both domestic and international). Listed below are these individuals. I thank each of them for helping me with the task of running this journal.
Associate Editors
Danny A. Basso
Michelle Beauvais
Amy Brady (past continuing education [CE] editor)
Paul E. Christian
Elpida S. Crawford
Mary Beth Farrell
Krystle W. Glasgow (current CE editor)
D. Scott Holbrook
Jennifer L. Prekeges
A. Robert Schleipman
Kathy S. Thomas (book review editor)
Kristen M. Waterstram-Rich (past CE editor)
Jessica Williams
Consulting Editors
Jon A. Baldwin
Pradeep G. Bhambhvani
Mark C. Langston
Frances L. Neagley
Janis P. O’Malley
Sharon L. White
International Consulting Editors
Geoffrey M. Currie (Australia)
Peter Hogg (United Kingdom)
Eric Laffon (France)
I would also like to thank the wonderful staff of the Communications Department at the SNMMI headquarters office. Without their continued dedication and hard work, the journals of the SNMMI simply would not happen.
SNMMI Staff
Susan Alexander
Laurie Callahan
Steven Klein
Rebecca Maxey
Paulette McGee
Susan Nath
Mark Sumimoto
Also, without reviewers, a peer-reviewed journal would not be possible. I thank each and every reviewer over the past 6 years for all their efforts in supporting this journal. There are too many to thank and list individually here, but I truly appreciate everyone’s help.
I came into this position with a great many goals, and I made progress on about half of them. Some were already in process before I started, and I was happy that they were completed during my term. For example:
Standardized teaching case reports were added to the journal.
A mobile application for smartphones and tablets was created.
All issues since 1973 were made available via an electronic archive (http://tech.snmjournals.org/content/by/year).
Reviewers became eligible (at the discretion of the Editor) to receive 0.5–1.5 CEUs for returning a review within 2 weeks of accepting it.
The electronic edition of JNMT was made available free of charge as a benefit to SNMMI physician members.
Currently, JNMT is being assessed for inclusion in the Journal Citation Reports published by Clarivate Analytics. These reports are a measure of a journal’s research influence and impact. It is difficult for a quarterly journal to achieve listing in Journal Citation Reports. With only 4 issues per year, it is an uphill battle. However, the staff and I felt it was worth trying. The process takes a minimum of about 3 years. We will learn the outcome sometime around June or July of 2018.“Thankfulness is the beginning of gratitude. Gratitude is the completion of thankfulness. Thankfulness may consist merely of words. Gratitude is shown in acts.”
—Henri Frederic Amiel, philosopher and poet
In this issue of JNMT we have 3 CE articles. One—a review of radiation biology and terminology—is an updated reprint with new questions for CE credit. I wanted to reprint this article in my last issue because it was the first article I wrote for JNMT. It is an overview of a radiation biology class I taught at the University of Alabama at Birmingham for students of radiography, radiation therapy, and nuclear medicine. It actually took me about 3 years to write this article. I was encouraged to write it by Ann Steves, who was my supervisor and the program director of the UAB program at the time. She reviewed the article and told me it was really good—and she was not one to give idle complements. Some educators have told me that they use this article to cover most of the required radiation biology module for their radiation safety courses. This article began a passion for writing articles and set me up for the role as Editor of JNMT.
In addition, we have a CE article on household and background radiation exposure that I think pairs nicely with the radiation biology article. A third CE article, which is included to make up for having only a single CE article in the September issue, is a review of pharmacologic stress testing with myocardial perfusion imaging. There are also several imaging articles, a teaching case report, practice management articles, and an invited perspective.
I have always worked hard and appreciated any opportunities to give back to my profession, as I have always believed in giving and helping to promote what we do in nuclear medicine technology. We make a difference in people’s lives every day, and I hope that in some small way, over these past 6 years as Editor of JNMT, I have helped contribute toward advancing our profession.